In April 2017, I set out to hike 2,660 miles from Mexico to Canada along the Pacific Crest Trail. (Yes, that’s the trail from Cheryl Strayed’s Wild.)

But I didn’t do that. I failed.

Instead, I hiked through 700 miles of desert and briefly into the heavily snowed-in Sierra Nevada mountains. In Bishop, California, I found myself without a group to hike with and knew facing the snow and river crossings alone could be fatal. I left the trail to hike along the Oregon Coast, another 300 or so miles. I considered going back to the Pacific Crest, the snow having melted, but I no longer felt like part of that world. So I went home.

I set out on the hike in hopes that it would help me feel unstuck from my own life. My mother had died two years before, and I’d spent those years learning to cope without her. I quit drinking, I did yoga and meditation, I went to therapists. But mostly, I found the mountains, and in them an ability to get through tough moments. Losing my mother was a suffering I didn’t choose. Hiking for five months, I thought, was a kind of suffering I could, and maybe I would have a chance to face it with grace.

Hiking for nearly 1,000 miles and failing to achieve my ultimate goal taught me a lot. These were the biggest lessons I took away from the trail and into my life.

1. I need less than I thought.

For four months I was dirty, tired, and smelly. I carried everything I needed on my back, from a sleeping quilt to candy bars to a menstrual cup should my period come in the middle of the wilderness. There were also all the things I didn’t bring: I didn’t carry books. I didn’t have a wallet or a purse (just a Ziploc with my credit card and a little bit of cash). I didn’t have deodorant (no point), or a rotating selection of fitness leggings, or more than three pairs of underwear.

For the most part, I didn’t feel I was missing anything. Hot, fresh food, yes. Clean hands, sometimes. But mostly, I felt happy to be living in the dirt. Hiking among other people who had also chosen to given up their creature comforts made it feel normal. But it’s also true that I had what I needed: food, water, and shelter. A sense of purpose. And people to talk to—the dozens of other hikers I ran into who were also trying to conquer the trail one step at a time.

2. My body can handle more than I imagined.

To carry 25 pounds on your back while walking for 10 hours, gaining and losing 3,000 feet of elevation almost every day, was a physically and mentally exhausting challenge. What surprised me was how willing my body was to do it. Soreness that would have kept me lying on the couch back home became an expected and tolerable element of my mornings. On the trail, I just had to embrace it and continue on my trek.

My journey was mentally challenging, too. I had to conquer my fears because the only way through them was to keep walking—past rattlesnakes and over ice shoots and into the creeping dusk where mountain lions roamed.

3. Independence isn't always all it's cracked up to be.

Long trails like the PCT have a slogan: “Hike your own hike.” It’s meant to keep you focused on your own journey, whether it's fast or slow, has long breaks or short ones, involves relaxing in town or just getting in and out as quickly as possible.

In reality, it manifested a little differently, more like, “Your relationship is with the trail over all other relationships.” It meant we hikers often left each other behind in order to reach our independent goals.

While I adapted to the physical aspects of the trail just fine, the social aspects never felt quite right. It surprised me, because at home I took on most adventures by myself and I’d anticipated embracing a similar solitary mind-set on the PCT. But by the time my trip was done, I realized what I’d wanted most in the wilderness was people I could count on. When I came home, I felt grateful for my relationships in a way I hadn’t before.

4. Nature is indifferent—and that's what makes it beautiful.

My favorite thing about hiking is that it’s accessible to so many of us, and that was true on the trail, too. Bodies of different shapes and sizes, people of different backgrounds and abilities, all of us walking the same path.

No matter how I showed up to the trail, the trail was indifferent. Whether it was hot and humid, freezing rain, or a perfect day with a light breeze had nothing to do with me, and there was nothing I could do to change it. How I responded to it was entirely my decision, though.

Like a meditation, I was constantly exposed to my thoughts and how they shaped my reality. I watched myself get hungry and grumpy and tired and saw the toll it took on my attitude when I ignored it, how I hated or loved the trail based on my mood. One morning I woke after having a dream about my mother and had to be patient with myself as my grief slowed me down while climbing up a mountain. The mountain hadn’t grown steeper, but my experience of it had because of my thoughts.

Learning this in a context of the indifferent, natural world made it clear that the way I choose to handle my emotions reflects directly on my physical abilities. When I got home, I was able to better recognize these connections, like when my mood was a signal that I’d taken on too much, or I hadn’t moved my body, or that I was dealing with an emotion I hadn’t acknowledged.

5. Big leaps are worth it, and failing is OK.

Setting out, I knew there was a chance—a very big chance—I wouldn’t make it to the Northern Terminus (the end of the PCT). Most people quit. Estimates put success rates at about 25 percent. It also didn’t help that 2017 was a snowy year. Trails disappeared in the Sierra Mountains and even at lower elevations further north late into the hiking season.

I knew all of these things going in and I chose to go anyway, and this is one of the things I’m most proud of.

I’d been afraid I was the kind of person who only took low-risk chances, but then I quit my job to hike. I’d been concerned my body would buckle under the task of walking every day, but then it hiked, without injury, for nearly four months.

Maybe even more importantly, instead of holding tightly to the finish line, I let myself be done when I was done. I set a goal and failed. But I was fine. I had what I needed. I was carrying it all along.